Top 10 Best Books For Aspiring Entrepreneurs 2021
Starting a business is not an easy undertaking and we recommend to anyone starting a business to get their ducks in a row before jumping in and getting started. I personally dedicated 6 months to preparing myself fully to start a business and reading books, listening to audiobooks and listening to people who had already achieved what I wanted to achieve was a key ingredient in that preparation as well as developing the skills needed to be successful with practical hands on training.
While the world is going through the current pandemic, the rug has been pulled from under a lot of businesses, even when it hasn’t been their own fault and if you can create and online business, like we suggest, you will be far less exposed to risk in the current climate. That being said, physical businesses can still be extremely successful and by reading the best books, you can mitigate as much of the risk of going into business as possible before starting out.
I am personally a big fan of audiobooks, but physical books are equally as beneficial, if not more so and these are some of my favourite books throughout my entrepreneurial journey so far, so let’s jump straight in.
1. Rob Moore: Life Leverage
Writing this article takes me back to some of the great books I read as an active entrepreneur in my earliest days and this was one of the very best.
While I struggled to make ends meat in the early days, this book changed the way I was operating. Instead of doing all the donkey work myself, Rob emphasises the importance of outsourcing the work that somebody else can do at least 80% as well as you and moving onto more important work yourself.
You need to set an hourly rate for yourself and outsource anything that falls under that amount. That amount should increase as you get better and increase your knowledge and experience.
Rob goes through all the tools you can use to outsource like Upwork and says to avoid getting an office until you hit $100k in revenue, a number that seemed light years away at the time.
This book probably had the most impact on the growth of my business overall and it is definitely worth a listen.
Rob also talks about not leaving your happiness in the future but to enjoy your journey every day while creating your ideal mobile lifestyle on the go!
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2. The E-Myth Revisited – Why Most Small Businesses Fail – Michael Gerber
When you go into business, the odds are stacked against you. Only a very small percentage of businesses make it past 5 years and an even smaller percentage make it past 10.
While the only reason a business will fail is because it does not sell enough products at a high enough profit margin, there are plenty of mistakes that you can avoid in your long term planning by creating a business, not a job.
“If your business depends on you, you don’t have a business, you have a job. And it’s the worst kind of job because you’re working for a lunatic.”
Once you build a business with systems you can scale it and business that scale, survive the longest and make their owners wealthy.
The book gives in the field examples of failing businesses, frustrated owners and how the Author Michael Gerber, comes in, delegates key tasks, creates a vision for employees to follow and turns the business around, opening the eyes of the owner at the same time.
This is a fantastic book for any would be entrepreneur, one that I thoroughly enjoyed and one we would definitely recommend reading.
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3. Grant Cardone – Sell Or Be Sold
Starting out on my Entrepreneurial journey was a lot tougher than I thought it would be. I went out around my city, calling into businesses and handing out fliers until I picked up some business. When I read Grant Cardone’s Sell Or Be Sold, it really clicked with me.
Everything in life is a sale, even getting your wife to agree to go for dinner with you, you need to sell her on the idea. Kids are the best in the world at sales because of their persistence until they get what they want.
If you are not selling, someone else is selling you. It also opened my eyes to the importance of the telephone to set up meetings and it even gives you lines to say to start the calls. Grant wrote this book in a weekend following the market crash in 2008 and following the recent Corona Crash, we are back in this situation again.
After reading this book I started cold calling to make appointments with potential customers and that is who I got my first business off the ground successfully for Web Design And Paid Ads.
Grant has gone on to be a billionaire and wrote some of my favourite books along the way. The book starts with Grant going door to door to sell fresh fish he had just caught that were going to go bad otherwise.
A real eye opening book to consider for any would be entrepreneur to get out and start selling!
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4. Rich Dad Poor Dad – Robert Kiyosaki
Rich Dad Poor Dad is one of the most popular books among Entrepreneur circles and it has been for over 20 years. This best seller, explores a lot of the myths of modern society and it explains in detail why following the system of going to college and having a career will not lead to wealth and instead you need to stop selling your time for money, develop assets and use your cashflow to invest in assets that make money while you sleep.
The book chronicles Roberts youth where he had a Rich Dad and a Poor Dad. The Poor dad went to college and had a good job but was broke because he spent all of his income of expenses and liabilities. The Rich dad dropped out of school, built businesses, put systems in place and didn’t spend money on liabilities like owning houses and expensive cars.
The book challenges the school system and house ownership in general and it establishes the meaning of an asset.
“An asset puts money in you pocket, a liability takes money out of your pocket”
Having a mortgage on a house is not an asset because it doesn’t produce income. While it can save on rent expense, you have to carry out repairs and furnish it also. You should put that money into online courses and learning new skills instead.
If you have a fully paid off house it is certainly a balance sheet asset but that is not the place to start if you want to build wealth.
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5. Way Of The Wolf – Jordan Belfort
No list of Entrepeneurial books would be complete without the Wolf of Wall Street himself, Jordan Belfort. Belfort launched to massive success and stardom after the hit movie, The Wolf Of Wall Street where Leonardo Di Caprio played the role of Jordan to a tee.
Questionable ethics, drug addiction and drink fuelled madness encapsulated much of the business success of Belfort but there is one thing that he does exceptionally well and that is selling.
Jordan uses the straight line sales method which defines three reasons why a customer wont do business with you. They Don’t Trust You, They Don’t Trust Your Brand Or They Don’t Believe What You Are Offering will work. If you can allay all of these fears, you can close the deal more often than not, once the customer is interested in what you have to sell.
This is practical hands on training for sales that you can implement immediately and it is the exact training that Jordan gives to multimillion dollar sales teams for them to expand.
This is definitely worth a look with sales being so crucial to business.
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6. 10X Rule – Grant Cardone
Another Classic from the entrepreneur that had the biggest impact on my career, Grant Cardone. This time 10 years later and as a billionaire. Grant revises many of the key prinicpals from Sell Or Be Sold and adds another decade of knowledge in this best seller that has propelled Grant as one of the Titans in the industry.
The book basically calls on entrepreneurs to increase their targets by a factor of 10. If you werw aiming to make $100k this year, you should aim for $1 million instead. Once you increase the target your mind will start looking for ways to make the new number happen and even if you hit $200k it is still more than you would have done aiming for $100k. Even if you hit $100k, it is probably still better than you would have hit if you aimed for $100k from the beginning.
Grant shares his hands on knowledge and his ridiculous persistence in chasing his goals. Grant’s energy is infectious, especially on the audio versio and the 10X rule is one that every aspiring Entrepreneur should be looking to read on the business journey.
7. Daniel Priestley – 24 Assets
Daniel Priestley is another successful entrepreneur and author that had a significant impact on my business. I have listened to all of his books on Audio. Entrepreneur Revolution talks about how the world is changing to that of the entrepreneur and getting the right mind set.
Oversubscribed talks about the power of filling your business so you can increase the price you charge. When a restaurant is full and turns you away, do you think it is a bad restaurant or a good one?
24 Assets starts with the simple truth that the value of a business depends on the assets it possesses. With that being said, An entrepreneur should focus their tasks on building assets like lead magnets, E-Books, Softwares and systems that can be used to generate income.
An Asset is anything that puts money in your pocket, a liability takes money out of your pocket. Generate Assets for a successful business.
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8. The Richest Man In Babylon – George Clason
This is one of the first books I read when I started my 6 month plan to jump from the Rat Race and start my own business. It is a tale of how you can use a moderate income to get out of debt, save your money and use it to build wealth.
The Book is almost 100 years old now and it is set in the ancient city of Babylon where most people blow all their money on expensive frivalties and leave nothing aside for saving to buy assets.
The main character gets the knowledge and applies it, using 10% of his income to pay of debts, 20% into savings and uses the rest to survive. Over time he is able to buy assets that increase his income power and he becomes wealthy.
This is a great book about frugality, patience and smart financial planning.
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9. Think And Grow Rich – Napoleon Hill
The ultimate classic, think and grow set’s out 13 steps or principals for being successful in life and business. Napoleon Hill, was instructed by Dale Carnegie, another of the worlds most successful men, to author this book and Hill set out with a burning desire to accomplish this goal.
He travelled around the world, interviewing all of the worlds most successful people and he noticed 13 key traits that they all shared. He proclaimed these as the keys to success in business and a wealthy life.
- Burning Desire – You have to want to be successful more than anything else, this burning desire is most commonly found in entrepreneur types.
2. Faith – That once you put in the work, the universe will reward you fairly
- Autosuggestion – Affirmations and visualising success
- Specialized Knowledge – A Key Skill that you can master (Affiliate Marketing, Youtube, Blogging, SEO, Facebook, Paid Ads) Or a niche where you have expert knowledge
- Imagination – You have to imagine your success and you can visualize it into reality
- Organized Planning – Break your plan down into individual tasks, stages and systems which you can use to steer the ship in a pre determined direction.
- Decision – Make key decisions quickly and stick with them (Something that I find quite difficult)
- Persistence – You will suffer set backs, you have to keep pushing ahead.
- Power of the Master Mind – Team up with like minded people, with similar goals and share your knowledge
- The Mystery of Sex Transmutation – Avoid sex and masturbation, the built up energy will make you push harder.
- The Subconscious Mind – Your subconscious connects you with infinite intelligence, watch how you speak to yourself and make sure it is positive and affirming.
- The Brain – The Brain connects to infinite intelligence and whatever you ask for, if you work hard enough, it will be delivered by the universe.
- The Sixth Sense – The best leaders have a sixth sense when it comes to what moves to make and these are delivered to the mind through infinite intelligence.
Napoleons book is a huge international best seller and so many of the worlds most successful people have read it and adopted it’s learnings, that it is a great place to start for any budding entrepreneur who already has that burning desire.
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10. Mark Homer – Low Cost High Life
Mark Homer is a financially free property investor and entrepreneur. He like me, found himself as a right winger in a fully left wing college environment but stuck to his morals and built a fortune on the strength of them.
Mark is the business partner of Rob Moore (Life Leverage) and together they build a business empire that has spanned far and wide.
This is an interesting book that depicts the tales of Marks Entrepreneurial journey and some of his keys to victory.
Frugality is again a central them of this book and Mark encourages you to buy nice things but to always get a bargain. Don’t waste your money one expensive cars and luxury items, but you can get bargains when they pop up. Don’t go to expensive restaurants but cook at home when you can.
A lot of Marks success has been down to having cash and liquid assets available to snatch up deals when they come along and this is one of the better entrepreneurial books that I have read along my journey so far.